


Darkest Before Dawn

by TurtleTotem



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Catra has nine lives, F/F, Pre-Portal, Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:27:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29335272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: "Let me make this clear," Glimmer said coldly. "You're dying. You are not going to be here when the sun rises."(Canon divergence from 03x04 "Moment of Truth")
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 234





	Darkest Before Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Also on [Tumblr](https://turtletotem.tumblr.com/post/642752719081357312/darkest-before-dawn).

"Let me make this clear," Glimmer said coldly. "You're dying. You are not going to be here when the sun rises."

Catra, curled on her side with her face to the wall, didn't so much as twitch an ear. Glimmer hadn't said anything she didn't already know. Though hearing the words aloud was more of a blow than she'd expected, she still wasn't going to give the Bright Moon princess the satisfaction of seeing her react.

Besides, moving hurt.

"There is one single person on Etheria who gives a damn about that," Glimmer continued, "and you're refusing to talk to her."

Not that her refusal to talk to Adora had kept the idiot from dragging her huge sword in here and trying to heal Catra with it, after the Bright Moon doctors couldn't even figure out what was wrong with her. If Catra had to die, at least she got to see Adora fail at something first.

She really hated the idea of dying _here_ , in princess custody. From what she could tell, it had been the stupid arrow boy who insisted on dragging Catra's unconscious body back to Bright Moon after Shadow Weaver—with help from Glimmer's borrowed magic—fried her half to death in that corridor. While Catra was passed out, the princesses had rescued Adora and destroyed the almost-finished portal. Since she disappeared in the attack, the entire Horde probably thought she'd been in on it. So really, she had nothing to live for anyway.

Catra closed her eyes, admitting to herself that was a lie. She did not want to die. But it wasn't like she ever got what she wanted anyway.

"I know you're awake," Glimmer said dryly. "Your tail is twitching."

Catra stilled it—too late.

"Adora wants to say goodbye to you," Glimmer said. "She's been crying for days. She even went to Shadow Weaver and begged her to save you." She waited, as if knowing this would finally prompt Catra to speak.

Hating herself for it, Catra did, her voice coming out raspy and faint. "What did Shadow Weaver say?"

"That she doesn't know what's wrong with you, either. She claims nothing she did to you should have resulted in… this." _This_ being the endless burning pain, and the slow, unstoppable draining away of Catra's life energy, her vital signs dropping bit by bit by bit for no apparent reason. "It might be some effect of the combined magics that were used on you."

She almost, _almost_ kept the guilt out of her voice in that last sentence. Catra smiled bitterly. _You're going to need a thicker skin to get through this war, Sparkles. Can't let a little thing like watching someone be tortured to death by her foster mother get to you_.

It took a minute for Glimmer to speak again. "Anyway, maybe it's unethical to force a dying girl to talk to someone she doesn't want to talk to. But I don't care about you. I care about Adora. So I've already sent a messenger to tell her you're asking for her."

Catra tensed. Which hurt.

"If you want to send her away again when she gets here, I can't stop you. But you'll be the one looking her in the face when you do it. In fact, let me make sure of that." Glimmer stepped forward and put a hand on Catra's shoulder. Before she could react, the world dissolved into sparkles and wind-chimes—and when it came back, Catra was turned the other way in the bed, facing the doorway. She was also _violently_ nauseous.

By the time she could see straight again, Glimmer was gone.

*

Adora stepped into the room, looking shy and… grief-stricken, Catra thought.

 _Dry your tears, Adora,_ Catra snarled silently. _I'm not dead yet_.

"Catra? You… you asked for me?" The tentative hope in Adora's voice was unbearable.

She could say _No_. She could say _Your manipulative little friend lied to you. I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to see you. I wish I had died without ever seeing you again._

Instead, she looked at the dark windows she would probably never see sunlight through again, and whispered, "Yes."

Adora hurried to her side, taking the chair a doctor had left and moving it closer. "Are you… are you comfortable? Can I get you anything?" She started to stand up again. "Let me get you—"

Catra grabbed her wrist; it felt like moving through honey, and she couldn't grip very hard, but she managed it. "No. I'm fine." She was hardly fine, of course—moving had sent a renewed ripple of pain through her body—but there wasn't anything Adora could do about that. Nothing they'd given her had helped the pain at all.

Adora sat down again, and shifted Catra's grip until they were holding hands, fingers interlaced. Catra waited for the touch to make the pain worse, but… it didn't. It might even have felt a little better.

The silence stretched, grew awkward. Catra couldn't stop looking at their hands. At least it was easier than looking at Adora's face.

"Did you want to talk about something?" Adora asked finally.

"Like what?" Catra rasped. "The war? Betrayal and broken promises? Your sparkly tiara and how it makes you so much more special than me?" The brief rush of speech left her gasping, which hurt.

Adora closed her eyes, as if to let the words wash over her and away. "I'll talk about anything you want," she said quietly.

Anything she wanted? That was a dangerous offer. Catra used the time while she caught her breath to decide on her most important question. She might only get one, before Adora got sick of her and left, or—or she ran out of time.

"Why did you leave me?" she said, her voice flat and measured. "Not the noble reason about saving the world. The truth. If you had to leave the Horde—fine. Why didn't you come _back_ for me?"

Adora's eyes grew suspiciously shiny as she looked down at their joined hands, tracing slow circles with her thumb.

"Because I knew you would talk me into staying," she whispered at last. "You were the one person who could. And I _couldn't do that_ , Catra, I couldn't live with myself if I stayed. But I also wouldn't be able to leave you, not on purpose. So I couldn't… I couldn't put myself in that position, I couldn't risk it."

Catra heard her own labored breathing halt in shock. "You… You would have stayed? For me? If I'd had the chance to ask?"

Tears were trickling down Adora's face. "Yes," she said, the word barely a breath, looking away in shame.

Of course Adora was _ashamed_ of this confession that had given Catra the first spark of happiness and hope she'd felt in… longer than she wanted to think about. Catra's laugh took her by surprise, and spiraled instantly into a desperate choking cough that sent lightning arcs of pain through her body. Alarmed, Adora caught her convulsing body and held her, stroking her back and murmuring stupid nonsensical reassurances. Catra couldn't keep her claws from digging into Adora's skin, but if it hurt Adora gave no sign.

On a wall behind Adora, the doctors had left some kind of array of crystals that monitored Catra's condition. Most of them had turned from green to amber in the last few hours, and none were very bright. Several of them went out while Catra was coughing. A few lit again once she had her breath back. Most didn't.

 _You are not going to be here when the sun rises._ Magic couldn't fix this one, not runestone magic, not She-Ra, not sorcery. Nothing could fix it.

And she was too tired and scared to fight the fact that Adora holding her felt better than anything ever had.

"Okay," Adora murmured, "you're okay, you're okay now. Do you want some water?"

Catra shook her head. "Could you…" She almost couldn't say the words, certainly couldn't look Adora in the face while she did it. "Could you just… lay down with me and—and hold me like when we were kids?"

"I can do that," Adora said without hesitation. Maybe even eagerly.

She moved Catra over in the bed with gentle, casual strength, and slid in next to her. This close, all Catra's senses were flooded with her—Adora's warmth, her scent, her heartbeat, their legs tangled together, Adora's arms around her and her forehead pressed against Catra's. It was almost enough to drown out the pain.

"I should have taken you with me from the beginning," Adora said softly. "I would have, if I'd known. It all happened so fast… and then when I tried, you wouldn't come. I did it wrong somehow, I did everything wrong."

" _You_ did everything wrong? I'm second in command of the Evil Horde." Catra didn't quite have the breath to laugh. "I should have gone with you. I wish I had. I wish I'd done it all differently." She hadn't intended to say all of that, hadn't expected to mean it. She was too tired to lie, even to herself. "I'm sorry, Adora."

Adora's mouth opened in shock. She knew better than anyone that Catra didn't apologize. She'd been _forced_ to do it all too often, as a baring of the throat, a submission to those with power over her; she didn't submit like that by choice, never. But this one didn't feel like defeat or humiliation. It felt like giving back something she'd stolen.

She and Adora looked at each other for a long wordless moment, almost too close for their eyes to focus. And then Catra shifted forward and kissed her.

And maybe this was why Catra hadn't sent Adora away when she saw her in the doorway. Maybe it was why she had refused to talk to her until Glimmer forced the issue. Maybe everything came down to this—Catra wanting this, wanting her, knowing she wouldn't and couldn't and shouldn't have her, and knowing that now there was no more time to wait and nothing left to lose.

Adora gasped, and Catra was so sure she would pull away that it took her a second to realize she _hadn't_. Instead, slow and unsure, she was kissing Catra back.

Everything Catra thought she knew about the world seemed to tilt sideways, or maybe she was just lightheaded from kissing Adora harder, deeper, again, again, shifting to press their bodies together, touching and being touched in a tangle of warm limbs…

She couldn't keep up. Far too soon, she had to break away, gasping, vision clouding over.

"Are you okay?" Adora said, breathless and shaky. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—it's all right, just breathe." Her touch now was an attempt to be comforting, steadying, instead of… what it had been a moment ago, and the frustration of that was sharp but useless. Catra tried to make herself relax and _breathe_.

"You should rest," Adora murmured, when Catra had managed to calm down a little. "It's awfully late, you should sleep. Build up your strength. Maybe you'll feel better tomorrow."

Glimmer hadn't told her, then. Good. Catra flicked a glance at the monitoring crystals, hoping Adora wouldn't notice them. There weren't any green ones left.

"Stay with me?"

"Of course," Adora said. "I'll stay as long as you want."

The room fell silent, only the sound of their breathing, and Adora's heartbeat in her ear. Adora ran her fingers through Catra's hair, slow and absent-minded, like she always used to do.

Neither of them said anything about the kiss, or the apology, or anything else. Adora no doubt thought they would have time when Catra was stronger. That worked for Catra. She didn't want to talk about it, ever, and now she wouldn't have to.

Eventually, Adora drifted off to sleep. Catra tried to do the same. Dying in her sleep wasn't the fate she'd ever expected for herself, but it was a victory of sorts, wasn't it? To fall asleep in Adora's arms and just not wake up—there were much worse ways to go than that.

She couldn't manage it, though. The pain was just a little too much to let her doze off. She closest she could come was a sort of blank trance, timeless, drifting.

Sometime in the night, she became distantly aware that she wasn't breathing. She felt too fuzzy and tired to be afraid, just… sad. She didn't want to go yet. She wanted to stay with Adora. But since when did Catra get what she wanted?

She squeezed Adora's hand with the last of her strength, just as everything faded to black.

*

Light blazed in her eyes, air filling her lungs with a harsh gasp, her nerves sizzling with an entirely different pain than the one that had sapped away at her for days—sharp, pure, clean. She floundered upright, coughing and dazzled and dizzy.

On the other side of the room—it was actually only a little brighter than before—Adora and Glimmer stared at her in utter shock.

Adora was sitting on the floor, looking like she'd collapsed there, her face puffy and damp. Glimmer hovered with an arm around Adora's shoulders. Apparently Catra's death had not gone unnoticed for long, which was… sort of touching, actually.

Catra cleared her throat awkwardly, and managed a version of her usual cockiness. "Hey, Adora."

"Catra?" Adora breathed, staggering to her feet and approaching her with a hand cautiously extended, as if afraid Catra would vanish.

"How…?" Glimmer glanced over her shoulder at the monitor crystals, all of which were bright green again.

Catra used Adora's hand to pull herself out of the bed. Her legs felt a little shaky from days of disuse, but they held her up. And nothing hurt. Nothing _hurt_.

"You were _dead_ , Catra," Glimmer said. "Explain!"

Catra grinned. "You know the old saying that cats have nine lives? I guess I'm down to…" She did a quick count on her fingers. "Five. I should still have five left."

"Wait, you _knew_?" Adora's eyes narrowed, her hand pulling away from Catra's. "You knew you weren't really going to die, and you let me think…"

"I didn't know." Catra swallowed hard, her smile falling away. "The resurrections are magic—my people's magic. And every other kind of magic had already failed against whatever Shadow Weaver did to me. I swear I didn't think it was going to work this time!"

Adora turned to look at Glimmer, who sighed deeply, crossing her arms. "Well, I believe her. She would never have let herself look so weak if she didn't honestly think she was dying."

Catra gave the princess a rude hand gesture, which she returned.

"So you meant it," Adora said softly, stepping closer again. "What you said. What—what you did. You meant it?"

Catra felt her cheeks burning.

She could say no. Say it had been fear and old sentiment talking. That if she wasn't actually going to die than she'd be heading back to the Fright Zone now, thanks, and any objections could address themselves to her claws.

But she didn't want to go back.

"I'm not in the habit of saying things I don't mean, Adora," she snapped instead. "Breaking promises is _your_ —ack!" She yelped as Adora flung her arms around her, squeezing painfully hard.

"This is not because I like you," Catra wheezed. "I just, you know, I think my career's gone as far with the Horde as it's going to and I'm looking for new opportunities—"

Adora grabbed Catra's face in both hands and kissed her hard. Catra felt herself melt into it instantly, ears and tail relaxing, no part of her able to resist.

Glimmer smacked a hand against her face, muttering exasperated profanities.

Outside the window, the first pink trace of sunrise appeared.


End file.
